For the simplicity's sake, I've used the familiar word catapult. Historians prefer to use the French word trebuchet. The correct term for the counterbalanced lifting device is swape. The swape lets you divide the force of lifting in two. Typically, to lift 80 pounds of water, you would push the bucket down into the water with a 40 pound force. Then it would take a 40 pound force in the other direction to lift the filled bucket.

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